What Is Not Internet Studies?

David Silver (2006) and David Gauntlett (2004) have different understandings of the status of “internet studies” and “web studies” as a part of social sciences. When discussing rapid approach of “internet studies” toward disciplinary status Silver (2006: 2) epistemologically leans on cultural studies. He acknowledges that this “young field of studies” is “under construction – with boundaries not yet set, with borders not yet fully erected, and with a canon not yet established” (Silver, 2006: 5). On the other, Guantlett (2004) argues that “new media offered much-needed kick to the world of media and communication studies, therefore, he positions “web studies” only “inside” media and communication studies. Both understandings are questionable and rather exclusive. Silver’s mapping of a special academic field implicitly contains the distinction between “life on line” and “real life”, however, the internet has become institutionally so integrated with processes and relations in political, economic and cultural system that the sense of its separatness, in regard we “normally” get things done, has in some way dissipated. Regarding this conception, Guantlett exclusive interlinking “web studies” with media and communication studies is rather surprising, because the research concerning internet is pouring in from a broad array of disciplines – the field of media and communication on its own cannot find all important questions that need to be addressed and the various ways to approach them. The cyberspace is a fluid phenomena which is being imbued with political, economic and cultural system and, therefore, has to be studied from different standpoints and with different approaches. The internet has lost its “newness” and “innocence”. Resnick (1998) in this regard acknowledges “the normalization of cyberspace” and imposes re-consideration of Foucault’s (1979: 184) notion of the Normal: “[T]he power of normalization imposes homogeneity; but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialities and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another.”

Igor Vobič, 2007


References
- Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan, trans. New York: Vintage.
- Gauntlett, D. (2004). Introduction. D. Gauntlett, R. Horsley: Web.Studies, 2nd Edition. London: Hodder Arnold.
- Resnick, D. (1998). Politics on the Internet: the Normalization and the Public Sphere. C. Touluse, W. T. Luke (Ed.): The Politics of Cyberspace, 48–68. London: Routledge.
- Silver, D. (2006). Introduction: Where is Internet Studies? Critical Cyberculture Studies, 1-14. New York: New York University Press.